Cinema's hidden dimension - Riding the 3D gravy train

http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2009/jul/03/why-3d-cinema-tickets-are-expensive

 

Your kids want it, your cinema wants it, Hollywood wants it: 3D is taking over. Even Cannes opened with Up, Disney's latest eye-popper. And with 14 3D releases before the year is out, the craze is set to continue. But this trend comes with a fourth dimension: cost. As your recession-bitten wallet recovers, there's a fresh set of bite marks from an average add-on of £2 per ticket. Entry to 3D films can now cost up to £16 for an adult and £10 for a child.

So why are 3D movie tickets so expensive? Well, it's not because of the special glasses you need, which only cost about 45p a pair - and the studios have been covering that cost, anyway. The pricy part to the exhibitor is the projection: the 3D effect is created by your brain combining two different images, one for each eye. So you either need two projectors, or a neat way of doing it with one. And that's where technology comes in.

Cinema, these days, is gradually going digital - it's cheaper than celluloid and gives better picture quality. The cost of a new digital projector is about £30,000. But that still only gives you one image. The clever part is a little lens add-on, which clips onto the front of the projector and splits the image in two via polarised light, giving the 3D effect. But where can one get such a high-class clip-on? A small Beverly Hills-based company called RealD.

RealD have supplied 300 or so of the UK's 3D-equipped screens, with another 300 scheduled to be made ready by the end of 2009. By the time they've finished, RealD will have put up a total of 1,000 3D-ready screens across the country, for Odeon, Vue, Cineworld and other chains. Although it is cagey about the details, RealD give cinemas their technology on a "revenue share model". A simple royalty per ticket, which pays for the technology, is the reason for the hiked-up prices. We are footing the bill for the cinemas to upgrade.

Not that we seem to mind - at least, according to the figures. In fact, cinema attendance for the first quarter of 2009 is up 7.5% on last year. The highest grossing film so far this year is Dreamworks' 3D animation Monsters V Aliens, which has taken £21m at the UK box office, topping even Star Trek's current total (£20.9m). Family animations are favourites for conversion to 3D, with Disney especially throwing its weight behind the format, but even the routine slasher movie My Bloody Valentine was a hit in 3D, outperforming its 2D partner to the tune of £6m against £700,000. With numbers like that, no wonder the industry is excited.

But the increased ticket price does skew the results. In 2008, the average UK ticket price was £5.18. But with its premium mark-up, 3D tickets are up at the £7 mark. So while 2-D Monsters vs Aliens grossed £2.16m from 463 screens on its opening weekend, the 3D version took £2.18m from just 174 screens.

So how much of that goes to RealD? It won't say, but Forbes reported that in the US the royalty per ticket is 30p. If it is that little here, then the cinemas are not just covering the costs of installing 3D, they are also taking a fresh cut for themselves.

Don't expect 3D to go away anytime soon. It is, remember, piracy-proof, since trying to record it just leads to wobbly camera footage. It's the perfect formula for the future: beat piracy, appeal to the kids, and raise the prices. As RealD puts it: "The important takeaway from today's 3D is that everyone wins." Except the person paying for the tickets.